{"id":737751,"date":"2026-02-08T09:41:22","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T09:41:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/737751\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T09:41:22","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T09:41:22","slug":"steelers-predicted-to-lose-breakout-offensive-star-in-free-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/737751\/","title":{"rendered":"Steelers Predicted To Lose Breakout Offensive Star In Free Agency"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsnetpittsburgh.com\/2026\/02\/06\/how-steelers-cam-heyward-addressed-question-about-future\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> have a lot of work to do this offseason. They have already tackled some of the biggest items on their to-do list, as <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsnetpittsburgh.com\/2026\/02\/06\/will-howard-steelers-qb-mike-mccarthy\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mike McCarthy<\/a> has quickly built out his coaching staff after being hired to replace Mike Tomlin. However, as the team\u2019s short stint in the postseason showed, this roster needs work, and the front office is going to have to be busy in free agency.<\/p>\n<p>Pittsburgh has several important players set for free agency, with one of the more overlooked guys being Kenneth Gainwell. In his first year with the Steelers, Gainwell starred both as a runner (114 CAR, 537 YDS, 5 TD) and as a receiver (73 REC, 486 YDS, 3 TD). While the team is expected to try to re-sign Gainwell, insider Mark Kaboly believes he will <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/MarkKaboly\/status\/2019796551132987815?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2019796551132987815%7Ctwgr%5Ea7e68d78e6dec47f5eb8195591e8102396219abc%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fweb.groupme.com%2Fchats\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">leave for more money elsewhere<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf the old regime were still in place, Gainwell would be a slam dunk of a yes,\u201d Kaboly wrote in a post on X. \u201cBut we don\u2019t know McCarthy and offensive coordinator Brian Angelichio\u2019s feelings on Gainwell \u2026 Spotrac has his market value at 2 years for $6 million. For a guy who has made less than $6 million over his entire career, more money somewhere else might be attractive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Losing Gainwell would be a big blow for the Steelers, especially if Aaron Rodgers returns to the team, as he turned himself into a safety blanket for the veteran quarterback. With a bigger role and more money potentially being on the table with another team, though, Pittsburgh may have no shot but to let Gainwell walk and pursue other options for their No. 2 running back role.<\/p>\n<p>More NFL: <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsnetpittsburgh.com\/2026\/02\/06\/how-steelers-cam-heyward-addressed-question-about-future\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">How Steelers\u2019 Cam Heyward Addressed Question About Future<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"nesn-in-content-ad__copy\">Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pittsburgh Steelers have a lot of work to do this offseason. They have already tackled some of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":737752,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[7,14451,6,520,57,2360,426],"class_list":{"0":"post-737751","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-steelers","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-kenneth-gainwell","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-pittsburgh","12":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","13":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","14":"tag-steelers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116034357830140067","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=737751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/737752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=737751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=737751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=737751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}